Birthday song, unwrapped

It’s not the world’s most complex and soul-stirring composition, but it’s a money-maker nevertheless.

“Happy Birthday To You” — an innocent ditty that could have dated to caveman times for all most of us cared — is the subject of a lawsuit filed Thursday by a filmmaker in New York.

Jennifer Nelson wanted to use the song in a documentary that is actually about the song. No problem, she learned — just fork over $1,500 and enter into a licensing agreement with Warner/Chappell, an arm of the Warner Music Group.

She paid, but she also questioned. Cutting through the legalese, she basically asked: “Really?”

And we have to agree. That this bland birthday-celebration standard is depositing massive sums annually in anyone’s bank account seems absurd.

The filmmaker argues the song is in the public domain, while the music company claims it owns the copyright. The company in 1988 acquired Birchtree Ltd., whose holdings included “Happy Birthday To You.” One of the filmmaker’s lawyers told the New York Times that Warner/Chappell collects licensing fees to the tune of $2 million per year.

As detailed in the lawsuit, the lyrics were applied to an existing song called “Good Morning To All” by sisters Mildred and Patty Hill in the late 1800s. For lawyers, of course, twists such as this little fact are like icing on the cake.

This is a copyright fight, and a complicated one. We expect lawyers for both sides to sound themes of authorship, ownership, precedent and reason — not harmoniously, but in a way that should make for a fascinating class action case in a federal courthouse in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, performance of the song for profit stays subject to royalty payments. So, sing it with abandon at your next private party, but take no more profit for the performance than a smile and a slice of cake.